Surveys Matter, But Actions Matter More

Surveys dominate the news these days. In the midst of one of the most unique primary seasons in U.S. electoral history, the results of voter surveys have upended the political process. Why is this?

It’s because a significant percentage of people on both ends of the ideological spectrum feel disenfranchised and disconnected.

Hmmm…is there a workplace corollary here? According to Gallup, there is. The percentage of employees who feel disenfranchised and disconnected is at an all-time high. Employees don’t get to vote their bosses in or out of office, but the manner in which they express their sentiments has profound economic repercussions for employers.

Voter vs. employee sentiment: The majority of voters typically voice their opinions on how the nation is being run once every four years. Employees share their sentiments in the workplace in dozens of ways—positively, negatively and passively—every single day.

Politicians are frequently accused of overreliance on survey data. Business executives, on the other hand, are often accused of paying too little attention to employee sentiment.

The missing link in an analytics-driven business environment: We have mountains of analytical data for optimizing manufacturing operations, supply chains and inventories, but for some reason, we tend to overlook surveys as a tool for optimizing business outcomes. Why is this?

One challenge we often hear about is the difficulty in making employee survey results actionable for managers. We sat down with Dr. Jack Wiley, who has spent the last 30 years of his career analyzing employee engagement, to find out what companies can do to help managers take greater advantage of employee survey results. Read what he had to say in our latest HR Thought Leader Insights article, Five Steps for Translating Engagement Survey Data into Action.